Resident Evil: Caution
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Did the Nemesis really need "caution" stickers on it? Just looking at it was enough to give you the hint.


**Caution**

POLICE LINE – DO NOT CROSS

Holding the police tape in her hands, Jill fought the urge to laugh. In what felt like a lifetime ago, this might have meant something. There'd be men and women in blue, red lights flashing, curious bystanders, and the perpetual sound of radio chatter on either side of that line. But that was then. This was now. What use had this tape for the living, when the few that remained were running for their lives or hiding? What use had it for the dead, who beheld the world in milky-white eyes, unable to read, or even comprehend anything bar their constant hunger? In a city of a hundred-thousand, what use had this tape where all it would take was one zombie to break the line?

She'd crossed lines of a different kind today. One of them, not too far from the police station, had been a line made out of police vehicles, numerous shell casings, and the bodies of the dead, not yet again risen. Like pavestones on a road to Hell, dozens of bodies lay sprawled out on the ground, all of them with bullet holes and flesh wounds, and all only on the ground because of the bullet that had finally pierced their skull. It had been like walking through No Man's Land, though in the knowledge that one side had already won the war. She'd scrounged up what ammunition she could find, made it to the police station and…and then she'd…

She grabbed a flask of bottled water on the desk, gulping it down. She didn't care if someone had beaten her to the punch, she needed some damn water. She hadn't brushed her teeth in days, or done anything that would be considered normal in the days since the outbreak had started, oral hygiene was the least of her worries. Putting the bottle down, and glancing back across the hall at the doors to the RPD's main hall, seeing those doors thump inward but never open…She winced. _That _was the worst of her worries, she reflected. The thing outside. The thing that had killed Brad before her eyes, and if not for a combination of speed, agility, and plain luck, she had no doubt that she'd be lying there in the courtyard beside him.

She collapsed into the chair at the desk, taking the last sip from the water bottle. She rubbed her eyes – it was day, but the sky was overcast, and little light was making its way into the hall. Even less light was provided by the lights that were still on. Her muscles ached. Her eyes stung. And all the while, the constant thump-thump-thump of the creature outside. The…whatever the hell it was. What was left of her rational mind told her that it might be a Tyrant, not dissimilar from the monstrosity Wesker had unleashed at the mansion, but she knew that didn't do Umbrella's creation justice. The way it had moved. The fact that it was wearing body armour. That the armour had "caution" signs on its armour of all things, as if the madmen who'd created it had needed reminding of the danger of their creation. And the word, repeated over, and over, and over. One that had cut through what was left of her fortitude more so than any of its growls or hisses.

"_STARS…"_

No sound now though, she reflected. Just the constant thumping.

_I'm probably going to die here._

She wiped her eyes, her hand catching no small amount of sweat and grime. She went to drink more of the water, but found that the bottle was empty.

_I'm really going to die here._

She looked around the hallway. No-one was here, living, undead, or fully dead. She could see aid stations though. Discarded syringes, shell casings, towels covered in blood…actually, the blood covered a whole lot of the place. No doubt that when the shit had hit the fan, people had flocked to the RPD for shelter. Certainly the automated loudspeaker she'd heard on the way here would have provided an incentive. Promising food and shelter…She snorted, lying back in the chair and closing her eyes. Food for whom, she wondered? The loudspeaker would be drawing the zombies here like moths to a flame. Four days after all this had started, she was left to ask if she was the only living person in this building.

_If only that was the first time I'd asked that question._

The door was continuing to thump, but it was barely registering in her mind anymore. Instead, she got to her feet, took a breath, and began to lay out all her stuff on the desk. Pistol. Shotgun. What ammo she'd scrounged up for the latter.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

The pistol was standard issue for the RPD, and she'd managed to scrounge a fair bit of ammo along the way. Checking her clip, and the others she'd brought with her, she came to a total of 53 rounds. Enough to deal with a fair number of zombies.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

Not nearly enough to deal with the thing outside. And a measly five shotgun shells weren't going to do anything either.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

"Shut up," she murmured.

The creature didn't oblige. It continued trying to get in. Battering away at the door. Like a sound she'd heard so many times. First at the Spencer Mansion. And second?

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

It had happened slowly, then quickly. Reports on the news. An emergency broadcast over the radio, urging citizens to stay indoors. She'd known what was happening, even if the people in her apartment block didn't. People who wanted to stay clear of Jill Valentine, disgraced RPD cop under suspension for gross misconduct. People who didn't want to listen to her when she'd tried to warn them that it was happening. That the endgame of Umbrella's greed and carelessness was coming to bite Raccoon City in the buttocks, and that they should get out now, or if not, get the water running because the water and electricity supplies could go down at any moment. They'd told her to piss off.

When the zombies reached the apartment complex, when the screaming had started…she hadn't had the heart to whisper "I told you so." When she'd looked out the window and saw the fires, and the lights of police and fire crew, when she saw blocks starting to lose power, she'd felt nothing. When she'd received a text on her old pager, one ordering all off-duty officers to report for assignment, she'd tossed the damn thing aside in both sorrow and anger. There was an old saying that when the wheels of justice began to turn, that nothing could stop them. And while she wouldn't call what was happening to Raccoon City justice, she did know that the wheel couldn't be broken. All she could do was either run, or step outside of the wheel and wait.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

But that was then. This was now. She was here to scrounge up what supplies she could before venturing back into the infested streets, in the vain hope that she could make it through to the city outskirts, and after that, beyond the quarantine the military had set up. And the "now" part of that plan had arrived.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

She got to her feet, slung the shotgun over her back, and got her pistol ready. Looking at the doors to the RPD lobby bang in, but not break. Reflecting that, if nothing else, the creature had reminded her of something – _Caution_.

Something that she'd have to use herself.

* * *

_A/N_

_Y'know, not that I'm complaining about the upcoming _Resident Evil 3 _remake, but looking at the cover art, why does Nemesis have "caution" stripes on its armour? It's a Tyrant - I think I already know to take caution. I mean, that's nearly as silly as having a Tyrant walking around wearing a fedora._

..._wait._


End file.
